The IICRD team collaborated with Aflatoun International, the International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD), UNICEF Thailand, government partners and young people, UNICEF East Asia Pacific. Together, they saw a need to address the high rate of violence, abuse and neglect against children in order to aid in healthy development. To do so, these organizations co-developed a series of Training Modules to promote meaningful adolescent participation in decision making by utilizing youth participatory action research methods, and multiple theoretical frameworks this work utilized child and youth agency as a tool to catalyze positive impact on psychological, social, and physical safety in school settings. The modules draw on UNICEF’s Global Guidelines for Adolescent Participation, Engaged and Heard, and seek to provide practical, contextualized training content for young people and government officials to come together and develop a shared understanding and action plans to integrate adolescent participation within government systems. This curriculum, adapted for the East Asian context, provides resources and activities for participants to jointly address real challenges from their communities, build partnerships across generations, and ‘learn by doing’ to strengthen commitments to meaningful adolescent participation in decision-making.
